Lopez de Ayala joins Oliveira’s ‘Angelica’

Trepa stars in 101-year-old grandfather's film

MADRID — The next feature from Portuguese helmer Manoel de Oliveira, who turned 101 on Friday, will be “The Strange Case of Angelica,” starring Pilar Lopez de Ayala (“Mad Love”) and Ricardo Trepa.

Trepa, Oliveira’s grandson and a regular in his films since 1990’s “No or the Vain Glory of Command,” will play a Jewish photographer staying at a hotel who is waked at night by the owners, who want him to take a last photo of their daughter, Angelica, who has just died.

Lopez de Ayala plays Angelica, who later appears to the photographer as a ghost.

Angelica” is produced by Luis Minarro at Spain’s Eddie Saeta and Francois d’Artemare and Maria Joao Mayer’s Filmes do Tejo. Both backed Oliveira’s last feature, Berlinale 2009 special screener “Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl.”

Budgeted at 2 million ($2.9 million), “Angelica” has subsidy coin from the ICAA and ICA, Spain’s and Portugal’s film institutes, respectively.